Mueller: Burrow and Bengals will be champs, and a problem for years to come

If my hunch is correct, sometime around 9:55 tonight, Joe Burrow is going to be doing something previously unthinkable; hoisting the Vince Lombardi Trophy for the Super Bowl champion Cincinnati Bengals.

Yes, that’s me giving away my prediction for the biggest game of the year in the first 30 words, but for Steelers fans who are thinking long-term, the result of Super Bowl LVI isn’t the biggest story.

The fact that the Bengals – the Cincinnati Bengals! – are playing in the game? That’s the A-1 news item. This is a frightening time for Steelers fans. For most of the last 18 years, they’ve been able to bully the rest of the AFC North, particularly its Ohio faction, on account of the mere presence of Ben Roethlisberger under center.

Even in years where the Bengals were good, they never felt like a threat. Carson Palmer tore up his knee, and the Cincy teams of the early-2000s were never the same. Andy Dalton was often good, never close to great, and definitely never viewed here as a genuine threat.

The Browns stunk, and the Ravens, while they were often the Steelers’ equal – or better – from spots 2 to 53 on the roster, rarely topped them when it mattered most, because Roethlisberger was usually able to outshine Joe Flacco.

These Bengals, though? I shudder thinking about what they’re going to make the next decade look like for the Steelers unless Pittsburgh finds its next franchise quarterback. Heck, I shudder thinking about what the next decade might look like even if the Steelers find said quarterback. There’s a good chance he won’t be on Burrow’s level.

Cincinnati is loaded at the skill positions, to be sure. Ja’Marr Chase is terrifying and I think he’ll be the best receiver in the NFL for the next decade. Tee Higgins would be the best receiver on about 20 other teams. Tyler Boyd is the third receiving option and he has two 1,000-yard seasons and is a premier slot talent. Joe Mixon has topped 1,000 yards three times; if he’s healthy and getting feature-back touches, he produces. C.J. Uzomah has suddenly come into his own.

The Bengals have an underrated defense; Trey Hendrickson is the only player in the NFL not named T.J. Watt with 13 or more sacks in each of the last two seasons. Jessie Bates remains one of the league’s most underrated safeties. Logan Wilson is an emerging linebacker in just his second year. Lou Anarumo is a savvy coordinator whose schemes twice managed to flummox Andy Reid and Patrick Mahomes in the second half this season, holding them to three points each time.

Make no mistake, though: Burrow is the straw that stirs the drink.

He has overcome a deficient offensive line – something the Bengals have plenty of cap room to fix this offseason (a number Spotrac estimates to be in the neighborhood of $53 million) – and a knee that wasn’t 100 percent to start the year, and has made it all look easy.

He’s so good already that the most common sentiment from detractors is, “They’re the Bengals, they’ll find a way to screw this up.” That reads like a coping mechanism, not a reality-based analysis.

Burrow has elevated a team whose overall metrics suggest that it is slightly above average, and placed them just 60 minutes away from a title. He’s turned the Bengals from an NFL laughingstock into an emerging power.

Mike Tomlin likes to speak of the Steelers’ goal of simply getting into the “single-elimination tournament,” and it seems obvious that he speaks of the playoffs in those terms to underscore the fact that anything can happen as long as you get in.

That’s really only true if you have a big-time quarterback. The Steelers got in this year and had no chance, and even their most ardent backers knew it.

The Bengals, on the other hand? Burrow got them in and got to work. If he had “first career playoff game” jitters against the Raiders, it didn’t show. He stood tall against the Titans in the face of a relentless pass rush, and hit a perfect throw to Chase to set up the winning field goal.

Most impressively, though, he rallied Cincinnati back against the Chiefs, and at no point in time did it feel like he was going to fall short. If Kansas City was going to win the game, it was going to be because Mahomes got the ball first in overtime and scored a touchdown. Once that didn’t happen, Burrow calmly, surgically dissected the Chiefs’ defense, and drove the Bengals into position for a chip-shot winner.

The whole sequence called to mind Tom Brady. Effortless confidence backed by flawless execution. I used to lament the fact that Brady always stood in Roethlisberger and the Steelers’ way, that they could never find a way to get past him. Thing is, Burrow is a better athlete and has more natural gifts than Brady.

Brady and the Patriots tormenting this team and city was bad enough. But with Joe Burrow running the show in Cincinnati, it looks like things may have gone from bad to worse.

By the way: Bengals 30, Rams 24.

This article originally appeared on Beaver County Times: Joe Burrow and Bengals will be champs, and a problem for years to come